I'll give you the background. I coached basketball for a year - girls basketball, modified girls basketball - at a Class C school. If you know me, you know what school. I'm young, but an old-fashioned type of guy whose two favorite things in life are basketball and winning. I can be difficult - but they're 7th & 8th graders, so I toned it back quite a bit. There were issues right off the bat. Some parents enjoyed having me as the new hire. Others didn't like it because I was so young (21, after an ankle injury that put me out 11 months kind of ended my college hoops days). Others did like that I was young because they thought they'd be able to influence my decisions - I don't play that game, though. We had A & B level teams instead of 7th & 8th grade. I could have an 8th grader on the Bs (which I did), I could have a 7th grader on the As (I had 3). One 7th grader missed the first day of practice because they didn't hand in their paperwork to our athletic director. I didn't pull her up right away simply because I hadn't seen enough of her yet to be confident in that decision. Of course, one of her parents called the school. This person is well-connected with the school's BOE, along with being the vice principal of a much larger school district in the area. Asked for a meeting with me, got his meeting. I stated why she wasn't moved up right away (guess what? I was moving her up anyway) but he still felt the need to go off about it. Talked about lack of communication - ask the people who played in the King of Kings College Prospect Division this summer. I'm such a good communicator, it's friggin' annoying. Just wanted to let his presence be felt. Oh well. The season goes on, and we're good. I mean, we're a Class C school whose only loss is to a Class A, while beating two Class Bs, another Class A, and a Class AA in the process. Kids were having fun, getting better noticeably, responding well - not much to complain about, or so I thought. A particular game happens that a (larger) school almost comes back to beat us - my squad won by 1. This is modified girls basketball, remember. The other coach and I had an agreement that we wouldn't play our starters in the 2nd & 4th quarters because she had so many kids on her team to filter in. Well, someone directs me to the wonderful website Topix the next day, where people feel their opinion matters. I'm getting blasted. Oh, this guy doesn't know what he's doing. Oh, he's just like the varsity coach who sucks. Oh, he doesn't play my kid enough. Oh, he gives everyone equal playing time. People, shut the hell up. (Enter town name here) - where you'll find a 25 comment post about a girls modified basketball coach and playing time.
The team had an interesting dynamic. Half of the players on this A team - my best players - either came from old-fashioned homes, where if the kid comes home complaining about practice being hard, the parent says 'you probably deserved it', or they came from broken homes. The other half was a VP's kid, the basketball booster club president's kid, the school superintendent secretary's kid, the kid of a neighboring district's superintendent... you get my drift. Tensions were rising. The pampered crew didn't get their own way, and it was killing them. A game we had late in the season got chippy. I almost picked up a technical foul due to the reckless abandon the game was being played with. Gotta defend the kids, right? Well, late in the game there was a hard foul and one of my players on the bench (one of the more fortunate ones) yelled 'punch her in the face!'. I quickly turned around, told her to sit down, pulled her aside and said we don't condone that type of stuff. She's an 8th grader, of course she cried a little bit. Ohhh boy. It was a lynch mob after the game was over. I had 5 parents walk over... all the privileged ones, and of course two were related (yeeeehaw!). All of them started yelling. One gave me a little shove. I would've knocked his ass out if we weren't somewhere with kids around. I refrained. I very quickly stated my case, but for the most part, I let them run their mouths to build mine. I was calling the athletic director right after. The AD was on my side all the way - he said he'd handle it.
Unfortunately, this well-connected group of parents went to board members. There was a board member who apparently walked into school the next morning saying that he wouldn't leave until I was fired. I don't know what happened, but this much I know: the superintendent of the neighboring district (who was not at the game) went to lunch with the school's interim superintendent that day. When the interim came back, I was immediately put on administrative leave. Smell fishy to you? Yeah. At this school, whenever someone gets put on leave, there automatically has to be a case put together and presented to the 'review board'. The AD puts the case together. Thank God the AD is like me - not part of the clique. He did a wonderful job, interviewing unbiased people who were at the game and have been around at different parts of the season. Officials, opposing coaches and athletic directors. I had parents - the good parents - calling me and saying they'd back me up in whatever way possible. Thank God for them. The others? Well, they never had the balls to say something to my face again. I have to them, and I would again. The AD interviewed 16 people, with not a bad word said, according to him. When the case was presented in its entirety, they had no choice but to reinstate me. It was proven I had done nothing wrong. A board member was on the record saying that me being put on leave was 'bullshit' and 'there were things that were withheld' from them at the start.
That was great, I beat the case. It marred our otherwise phenomenal season, where the B team improved drastically from beginning to end and the A team had more success than they've ever had. It marred their outlook on basketball season when their last game had to be cancelled. It put a bad taste in my mouth for my first actual coaching experience. Weeks after I was reinstated, I was offered the JV coaching job. I politely turned it down. I want nothing to do with that district anymore. I don't care about coaching there after they tried to run me out as a method of laughing in their face. This past year, I was offered the varsity job. I turned it down. I even was offered an assistant coaching job at the local college for men's and women's basketball. Yeah, your modified coach that you tried to can could've been a college assistant within a year & a half of the incident. I may have taken that if I stayed in the area, but I moved, so I turned it down. I'm cool with not coaching - I'm too young to deal with the headaches of parents and the board of education politics. I just run the leagues that the best high school players in upstate New York play in as a 23 year old.
So, that brings me back around to Whitehall. I think we all know the situation. Coach Justin Culligan was initially not brought back for his coaching position this year because there was a movement to bring the old (really old) coach back around for Whitehall's 100th season. Nostalgia? Second coming of the big man Jesus Christ himself? Did he coach Whitehall in its 1st season as a football program? Who knows. After a community uproar, the decision was reversed and he was back. They really didn't want him back though, as this showed. Two days after a fight and consistent overly angry play forced officials to call a game between Whitehall & Rensselaer a couple weeks back, the board unanimously voted to can Culligan, the head coach. Mind you, the assistant coach was accused of tackling & choking a kid on the opposing team, but he's fine. Due process. The head coach who had the three Cs down pat compared to the others? Oh he's the three Cs alright; canned, canned, & canned. After even stronger community upheaval, a board meeting where they already had their minds made up to hold their decision regardless of what anyone said, and a week of beating around the proverbial bush, they came out with a 'reason' today. I quote reason because it's more of an excuse. They say they canned him over swearing. Cursing. Use of profane language. Ya know, something that every varsity football coach does? Every varsity coach, basically? Every football coach? I've heard Pop Warner coaches curse at kids.
I don't condone that. I'm just saying.
First off, if that's the actual absurd reason, then why not say it right off the bat? Second, do you realize that none of us are buying your sack of crap? I think the only people that believe the Whitehall BOE & superintendent's released excuse are the washed brains of the Whitehall BOE & superintendent. Remember, I've been through this before. I can smell a skunk, and there's some stinky shit going on here.
Even Mr. Krabs smells it. We can all tell you it's the sweet smell of bullshit. I'm sure the Whitehall Board of Education will never read this, and there may never be someone from Whitehall that does (although I hope they do). I've never made it up there for a game, I've never watched them play. Hell, I've never been there at all. Like I said, there's a certain agenda that the powers that be in Whitehall want to follow, and a football season - the 100th football season, and as I'm well-aware, some senior years that people from small schools treasure so dearly throughout life - that are marred because of it. Not to mention that a coach, apparently a good one considering the program's success now, is out of a coaching job. But apparently this doesn't go on his permanent file. Why? They say it's not bad enough. Well, no shit. Of course it isn't. He didn't do anything. The real reason is because they hope there will be no evidence of the putridity of all this down the road. They don't want to be remembered for the idiocy of all this. So how about we just don't put anything on paper and try to sweep it under the rug?
Long story short, this is one big case of a few things:
1.) How not to handle a situation if you're a school adminstrator
2.) Why many people, young and old alike, now hesitate to get into coaching in the amateur ranks
3.) People are smarter than administrators in general like to think - they can read through BS
4.) How about the boom of social media? This is a tiny town, and all of NYS and western VT know about this.
Last but not least, this is just the latest in an alarmingly growing amount of cases where a coach pisses off the wrong person in one way or another, and they lose their job over it. It happened in my area with Coach Casale at Mt. Markham, Byron Abraham at Notre Dame, me kinda... It's happened other places. Coach Bennett at C-NS, one of the winningest softball coaches you'll find. Coach Al Knapp, one of the most decorated basketball coaches in NYS history, got out of it because of parents and the influence they can have. Well, Florida was a nice reason too. Add Justin Culligan to the list. And like always, everything the Whitehall Board of Education and superintendent presented over the last 10 days was a crock of shit. I swore a few times in this... are you firing me first or can I just walk out?
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